That's exactly my opinion for tire size and what I've seen as far as breakage goes too.

I ran the equivalent of 31.5"/32" tires on a half ton SUV 4x4 and if you get good tires they'll do everything you need and still be practical for the 90% of the time you aren't off roading. Probably closer to 95%/99% for a lot of people. I like having mud tires though because I know I can get out of a jam easier than if I had regular tires. They do decent enough on the snow too although all-terrains do better.

If they had lockers and/or a winch they probably wouldn't have broken anything.

For ring and pinion gears I think I'd want to have somewhere around a 4:1 ratio with 35" tires, slightly higher with 37" tires, and then have the transmission geared to compensate.

A long time ago I learned that Porsche and Mercedes usually stay around 3:1 with their axle gears and gear the transmissions different because the ring and pinion gears are stronger that way.